A Cumberland Island dream trip

When I first heard about the Cumberland Island National Seashore just north of the Florida/Georgia border, the travel brochure's description sounded like a dream:

Forests so quiet that you can hear yourself breathe, sunlight filtered and diffused through over-arching trees and vines, sounds of small animals scurrying in the underbrush, the gentle splash of water moving through the salt marsh … and as you emerge from the shadows of the live oak forest, a standing row of slave cabin chimneys, fallow gardens and crumbling walls of mansions from bygone eras.

But whenever I travel, I've usually got a couple of head-movies simultaneously running through my brain: The dream trip described in the travel brochure, and the nightmare scenario — the combustible byproduct of a perpetually worried mind and an overactive imagination.

And sure enough, in mid-January, as I booked five ferry reservations for an early-February island adventure, the brochure's fine print began to sink in: The island is accessible only by ferry; there are no restaurants or convenience stores; no transportation, either. Visitors are responsible for carrying with them everything they need for the duration of their stay.

Soon a nightmare scenario had begun to flicker and take form in my brain: Me. Stranded on a deserted island for four hours (or more) with two sullen, hungry teenagers and two grumpy old men (my husband and my father), both of whom have bad knees. Me. Pushing one of the grumpy old men across the sand dunes in a "beach-faring" wheelchair. Kids and grumpy old men giving me accusing "Who's-idea-was-this?" looks until the ferry rescues me from my self-inflicted misery.

Unless (gasp!) we miss the boat.

The last ferry to the mainland pulls away from the docks on Cumberland Island at 4:45 p.m. As I finalized my reservation with the cheerful booking agent, the sound of another, equally cheerful voice rose up in my head – that of my friend and veteran Cumberland Island visitor, Bruce Jennings. I had once asked Bruce, "What happens if you miss the last boat?"

His chipper reply: "Then you're camping!"

GETTING THERE

From Gainesville, it's a two-hour drive to the fishing hamlet of St. Marys, followed by another 45-minute ferry ride to Cumberland Island. The ferry makes island runs twice a day for most of the year. Tickets must be reserved in advance.

The dream trip: I drive. We leave Gainesville at 8:30 a.m. with an ample supply of food and water for the day. We make it to St. Marys with time to spare for the 11:45 a.m. ferry departure. We get good seats on the ferry and the waters are calm. We leave the teenage boys at home. They don't want to come anyway.

The nightmare scenario: We leave at 9:45 a.m. My husband speeds and tailgates his way to St. Marys as I stomp a fake-brake hole in the passenger-side floorboard of our mini-van and rip tiny crescent moon-shaped tears in the armrests. We arrive so late that we have to leap from the dock to board the departing ferry. I get seasick on the ferry as it pitches and yaws its way over 20-foot ocean swells on its way to the island.

The reality: We're late. At 9:07 a.m., I'm still slapping deli meats between slices of bread for our lunch when my husband pulls the van out of the garage and honks the horn. Looks like he's driving. I leave a mess in the kitchen for our two sons to clean up while we're gone.

We make the trip in record time. We even have time to buy a few bottles of water.

Outside the U.S. Park Service's Welcome Station, I'm relieved to see that plenty of seniors are planning to visit the island. Some of them even have camping gear, but most are clearly day-trippers like us. Maybe we won't need that wheelchair after all.

I ask the park rangers what they suggest for people who are making an afternoon visit. They recommended disembarking at the Ice House Museum and taking the ranger-guided walking tour of the Dungeness ruins, then hiking a mile and a half up the beach to Sea Camp. From there, it's a short hike across the island to the Sea Camp Ranger Station, where we can catch the ferry back to the mainland at 4:45 p.m. Total distance: About 3 miles.

We can do this.

We board the Cumberland Queen passenger ferry for a jaunt along the St. Marys River, which meanders through scenic saltwater marshes and mudflats, offering spectacular low-country vistas. The only waves on the glassy waters are the ones made by the boat. And the only bleak spots are a couple of pulp and paper mills spewing smoke off in the distance.

ON THE ISLAND

Cumberland Island, now a national seashore managed by the U.S. National Park Service, features more than 20 miles of protected saltwater marshes, maritime forests and pristine beaches, along with 50 miles of hiking and cycling trails, fishing, camping, shelling and other outdoor recreational activities.

The island is also home to the estate ruins of some colorful Revolutionary War era characters and one of America's prominent Gilded Age families, the Carnegies.

The dream trip: Everything is just as the park rangers described it: The tour, the ruins, the stroll on the beach, the return to Sea Camp by 4 p.m.

On the beach, we witness a dramatic power struggle between two wild stallions – part of a feral herd released from captivity by the Carnegie family nearly 50 years ago – as they spar for rights to head of the herd.

I capture it all on my digital camera and my photos become travel brochure-quality mementos of our trip. When the kids see the photos, they beg us to take them here.

The nightmare scenario: Our tour guide sounds like an automaton, every word and vocal inflection carefully rehearsed and repeated ad nauseum. The herd of feral horses gets spooked by a rattlesnake, and all 165 of them stampede down Coleman Avenue, the road we're hiking along on our way to the ruins.

After an hour, we've seen all we want to see and my father's arthritic knees begin to act up. We're stuck on a desert island with nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon.

The reality: The park ranger leading the Dungeness tour is as enthusiastic and energetic as the day she started working on the island in 1983. She brings to life more than 4,000 years of human habitation on the island by picking random people in our tour group to represent the folks who shaped the island's history: a Timucuan Indian chief, British General James Oglethorpe, American Revolutionary War General Nathaneal Greene, his wife and his mistress, and — a hundred years later — various members of the Carnegie family. I am relieved that our tour guide never picks me.

At 1:30 p.m. we reach the ruins of the Dungeness estate and our tour guide bids us farewell. We're free to stroll the grounds, eat lunch and then follow the boardwalk that leads across the sand dunes and onto the beach.

As we tour the estate, I hear the snort, whinny and stomp of horses in the bushes. Two of them venture out onto the grass to feed. They seem oblivious to our presence. But watching them graze has made my day.

We eat our sandwiches and check out the ruins, then head out to the dunes and the beach.

I check my watch: 2:50. We've still got plenty of time. My father, who comes from a long line of Norwegian sailors, can't wait to see the ocean, and he won't be satisfied until he does. We press on, but pretty soon we realize that the hike to the beach is longer than we thought. We can hear the ocean, but we can't see it for the dunes, which seem to roll on and on.

At 3:10 we regroup. Should we keep going or turn back?

Just then, a park ranger drives by and we flag him down and pepper him with our questions. The park ranger hesitates, sizes us up. No. He doesn't think we can make it up to Sea Camp in time to catch the ferry.

Then my husband asks the one question I can't bring myself to utter: "Can you give us a lift back?"

I scrunch down in the back seat of the park ranger's SUV as we pass some of our fellow travelers walking along the main road to Sea Camp. We reach Sea Camp at 3:30 and I'm grateful that the ranger has parked behind the building so no one can see us climb out.

At Sea Camp, the island is just a half-mile wide — much narrower than at its southern tip. From the dock and the ranger station, it's just a 10-minute walk through the campgrounds to the beach. We stroll through the tree-canopied campgrounds and onto the beach, and a travel-brochure-like head-movie begins to form in my head. We should go camping here! The whole family … except for the dog. (No pets allowed.)

HOME AGAIN

We eat dinner in St. Marys and pile into the car at around 7 p.m. I drive.

When we arrive home at 9:00 p.m., the kitchen is clean, the laundry's been done and the kids and the dog are happy to see us.

Then, as my 14-year-old son watches me download the photos of Cumberland Island's wild horses onto my computer, he says, "Hey, when can we go?"

If you go

Plan your trip well in advance. The ferry and campgrounds fill quickly during the spring and summer months. Advance reservations are a must. To book a ferry reservation, call (877-860-6787) or (912-882-4335). For ferry schedule, fees and park information, visit www.nps.gov/cuis.